Beginnings
by Denise Nicole
Summary: A camping trip changes lives forever.


**Beginnings**

A/N: This is a pseudo-response to the Cape Haven camping challenge. While this fic doesn't quite fit the requirements of said challenge, it was inspired by it. Also, much, much thanksto the AB Alaidh for the awesome beta.Enjoy!

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The woods gave her the creeps. The last time she had been in woods was on that fateful night when she stopped being a soldier, and began to fight to be a person.

Max shook her head as the old memories threatened to crash over her. There was no time for the past, she reminded herself yet again. There is only time for the present.

She carefully stepped through the dark forest, being careful to keep her footsteps quiet, in spite of the leaf litter around the forest floor. She forced her thoughts towards her next moves, trying to make sure her strategy was sound. A few days away from people would help shake the feeling that she was being followed – and also help shake those who were actually following her.

Max took another few steps, constantly moving her eyes and altering her path of movement, always aware that there could be no such thing as a casual walk through the woods for her.

There could never be anything casual about her life.

She sighed and shook her head. It wasn't as though she'd ever really had dreams or anything. But ever since she had escaped hell, well, her expectations had, at least, increased. She wanted to be a "normal" person, with all of the ramifications involved.

Instead, she was on the run. Again. _Third time in as many months_, she thought to herself grumpily, as her legs began to tire. Her whole self – body, mind, spirit – was tired.

Finally coming to a stop, Max glanced around, deciding that it was as good a place as any to rest for a couple of hours. Bending her knees, she sprang up, grasping the bottom branch of a tree, and swinging up like a gymnast. She carefully stretched out on a branch that would support her slight weight, and closed her eyes.

"Look, I didn't even want to come out here."

"That's bullshit. You've been talking about it for weeks."

"Have not."

A sigh. "Well, maybe if you were sober, you'd remember."

Max's eyes snapped open as she instantaneously became alert at the sounds of voices in the woods. She quickly moved into a crouching position on her branch, focusing her hearing on the voices in an attempt to ascertain their positions.

"And what makes you think I'm not sober?"

_Quite some distance away, stationary. And quite pissed off._ Max smiled wryly. Curious, unable to resist, she hopped down from the tree, not making a sound as she landed.

"Come on, Val, I can count on one hand the days in the last month you haven't had a drink."

As Max closed in on their position, she picked up on the frustration in the man's voice. Even though she was only 16 – maybe – she could understand his feelings. She'd had plenty of drinking buddies in the assorted cities she'd lived in, and several she had severed ties with simply because they didn't know how to put a bottle down. She snorted softly. Not that those ties wouldn't have been severed anyway.

"You're exaggerating, Loogie."

Max paused, and raised an eyebrow. Loogie? What kind of name was Loogie? She approached a small clearing, and quickly and quietly scrambled into a tree. Not that they would necessarily be able to spot her in the very early dawn, but it was best to be safe.

There was a tent, and a campfire. There were also two people: a woman standing with her hands fisted on her hips, and a man poking at the fire with a stick. They were quite the couple, Max mused. Both were trim, young, and had a sheen to them that spoke of money. Max could indeed see the haze of alcohol in the woman's – Val's – eyes, even then. She couldn't see the man's face, as he was looking down at the fire.

He gave the fire another frustrated stab, and looked up at the woman sharply. Max was taken aback as she saw the fire leap into his eyes, the gold obscuring whatever the natural color was. It made him look dangerous.

"My name is Logan, Val. Logan. God, for as long as we've been married, you've never once cared that I can't stand that stupid nickname, have you?"

Val tried to spin towards him, but only succeeded in losing her balance. Logan stood up quickly and grabbed her before she could step in the fire. She grinned. "Finally got you to touch me." She ran her hand down his chest and began to slide it even farther south, but Logan caught her wrist in his hand.

"Val, please…"

"Logan, please…" she mimicked. "Let's blow this overgrown weed garden, and go find a bed somewhere so we can…"

"Val! Stop!"

Max couldn't agree with him more. She didn't get how he could stand to be around the lush.

He grabbed both of her arms and gave her a quick shake. "This is our _vacation_, a chance for us to be together in a context away from the city, away from the bedroom. A chance for us to be _us_. Don't you want that, too?"

The look in Val's eyes hardened. "We've been us. Right now, I just want to be me. Let me go." She wrenched her arms away from him, turned on her heels, and stalked/weaved away into the woods, calling over her shoulder, "Going for a walk. Don't wait up."

In the tree, Max's gaze followed the woman as she disappeared into the forest, wondering if she passed out and died, if the alcohol fumes would kill the surrounding vegetation. She shrugged off the thought and turned back to the man.

She felt her heart thud.

He had sat back down on a small log near the dying fire, and had put his head in his hands. His breathing was shallow, as if his anger was totally consuming him, but as he lifted his head, Max could see that his expression was more one of desperation. The fire was almost nothing but embers now, and the fading light reflecting in his eyes only enhanced the emotions she could all but physically feel pouring out of him.

Logan sighed and rubbed his head. He spoke to the emptiness around him. "I don't know what I'm going to do…what I can do."

Max wanted to say something to him, desperately felt a pull to answer him. But stayed silent.

"What happened to us? All I wanted was a normal life, what everyone around me seemed to have and what I always seemed to be missing. How did I end up with this?" He stood slowly and scuffed dirt with his feet to kill the remaining burn of the fire. "It can't go on like this anymore. I can't run around in circles like this anymore. I quit." He turned and went into the tent.

Max quietly slid out of the tree and moved as fast as she could away from the small campsite. She soon found that her walk had turned into a run, and she was now desperate to leave that place. The place of endings. As she ran, her thoughts spun around that last image of the man – she'd already forgotten his name, and now was working to forget his face. But she would never forget that moment. He had unknowingly made a decision for her. She couldn't go on like this anymore. She was tired of doing nothing but running in circles around a past from which she frantically tried to hide. They could continue to chase her, but she would no longer be the rabbit to the hunter.

"I quit." She stopped abruptly and yelled at the forest behind her, "Do you hear me? I quit! You can't have me anymore! You can't have my life anymore! This is _my_ life and I claim it as mine. The next place I go will be my last. It will be my past, present, and future, and you can't have it. It's _mine_."

She felt a weight lift that she didn't know she carried. She turned and slowly began to walk, not bothering to hide her footsteps any longer, not caring who heard.

She was ready to begin living now.


End file.
